Born in 1876 – only five years after German unification under Bismarck – Adenauer was for the rest of his life associated with his native city of Cologne, with its towering

the test of statesmen is the durability of political structures under stress, while prophets gauge their achievements against absolute standards. If the statesman assesses possible courses of action on the basis of their utility rather than their ‘truth’, the prophet regards this approach as sacrilege, a triumph of expediency over universal princip

The first is to preserve their society by manipulating circumstances rather than being overwhelmed by them. Such leaders will embrace change and progress, while ensuring that their society retains its basic sense of itself through the evolutions they encourage within it. The second is to temper vision with wariness, entertaining a sense of limits.

Thucydides described Themistocles as being ‘at once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities’.[16]

American leadership proved pivotal. Elected president in November 1952, Eisenhower had decided that the unification of Europe and its joint defense, including the Federal Republic of Germany, was, in the words of one historian, a kind of skeleton key, unlocking the solution to a number of problems at once, and most important, providing a type of ‘d

Rejecting the prevailing strategies based on dynastic loyalty or confessional affiliation, Richelieu instead oriented France’s internal and external policies in accord with ‘reasons of state’ (raisons d’état): that is, the flexible pursuit of the national interest based entirely on a realistic judgment of circumstances.

Meaningful political choices rarely involve a single variable; wise decisions require a composite of political, economic, geographical, technological and psychological insights, all informed by an instinct for history.

In the Prussian Upper House, to which he belonged ex officio as lord mayor of Cologne, he voted against the Enabling Act. He refused an invitation to welcome Hitler at Cologne airport during the election campaign. And in the week before the election he ordered the removal of Nazi flags from bridges and other public monuments. Adenauer was dismissed

Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy.